Cone Digital Print Workshops Bring a Friend special offer!
13 February, 2018 by
Cone Digital Print Workshops Bring a Friend special offer!
Jon Cone

Here is a sweet Valentines special!  Bring a friend, a relative, a significant other…  Reserve two seats in a  workshop and receive a $150 discount off each. We’ll apply that as an instant rebate when you pay the deposit for these on our web store. You’ll pay the balance of the two workshop seats 30 days prior to the workshops. The Promo Code for this special is  BRINGAFRIEND.  Enter that into the Promo Code box in our shopping cart. And by the way, if you want to spread the love to yourself that Promo Code also works for two different workshops for one person! The Promo Code is good through March 15.

Cone Editions Press digital print workshops are unique in that they focus on printing. Everything is focused to making the best possible prints. We supply our attendees with large screen calibrated displays. You work in a calibrated environment. You have access to many printers. You do the actual printing and the printing is not an after-thought that comes after days of tedious digital demonstration. The printing is what you come to Cone Editions Press for and we will immerse you on the first day. We’re unique in that we provide the entire package of calibration, imaging skill, highest standards printing, printer maintenance, and best practices as they relate to a profession studio (Cone Editions Press).

Here’s the 2018 Calendar.  You can scroll further down this newsletter for descriptions of these workshops.

These workshops take place at Cone Editions Press in East Topsham, Vermont. Each is limited from 5 to 8 participants. The cost of a Cone Editions workshop is $1,500 and includes all materials. A very delicious and healthy lunch is included. In the Summer, or if Fall weather is warm, Jon and Cathy Cone host a paella party on the outside covered deck behind Cone Editions Press on Wednesday night. We also keep the studio open for extra print time that evening. You can bring significant others to this party and enjoy our Vermont rural location and probably (if not definitely) the best paella you will have ever eaten. We’ll even teach you how to make paella if you’re interested.


That red arrow on this Milton Bradley puzzle box cover is Cone Editions Press, its pasture, and its hilltop. This is the birthplace of contemporary digital printing (pre-Epson) and where nearly all the significant firsts in contemporary inkjet printing ink for IRIS Graphics and Epson printers was first invented or developed. Like what for instance? Cone Editions invented quad black inkjet printing; invented multi-toning monochromatic inkjet printing; developed one of the first archival inks; invented light blacks for Epson printers; offered the first pigment ink for Epson photo printers; first to produce color managed color pigment inks for Epson printers; invented the darkest matte black ink that has ever been offered to this day; etc. If you want to increase your skills in digital printing, you can’t choose a better location than Cone Editions Press! 

THIS YEAR WE ARE OFFERING MANY DIFFERENT TYPES OF MONOCHROMATIC, COLOR, AND CREATIVITY WORKSHOPS.

PIEZOGRAPHY FOR BEGINNERS.

This is a 4 day workshop in which participants that are thinking about getting into it, or are starting out in Piezography will explore both Piezography and Piezography Pro systems. You won’t be forced to participate in one over the other – and can gravitate towards one or the other. But, it gives you a chance to compare them, print with different ink/paper combinations to find your favorites, and explore the new Piezography Professional Edition tools to produce your own linearization curves (one-on-one instruction).

You’ll be able to make prints with the industry’s darkest matte black ink! It is significantly darker than anything from Epson, Canon, HP or other 3rd parties. Add a full stop of dynamic range to your prints!  Because Piezography significantly increases the acuity of an Epson printer – be prepared to learn new imaging techniques to raise your skill level and to unlearn old habits that are adequate for OEM systems but inadequate for Piezography systems. We try to un-complicate what is necessary to make the highest standard black & white prints. Filter packages will probably become a thing of the past for you, as you will learn to make your own black & white adjustments rather than depend upon pre-built packages; the reason for that is in producing a much higher standard!

This workshop is loaded with live demonstrations. Participants get to plug into our calibrated displays using their own laptops. You’ll be working in Cone Editions Press studio where Piezography is developed. There are many printers available and lots of great papers. There are so many amenities to this workshop! You’ll even get printer maintenance demonstrations. Staff from InkjetMall will be on hand to offer discounts for supplies purchased during the workshop that make acquiring your own Piezography system very attractive!

Click here for Piezography for Beginners workshops.


ADVANCED PIEZOGRAPHY PRINTMAKING.

Come with us on a magical Piezography mystery tour! This is a 4 day workshop is perfect for those with more Piezography experience or those who have taken a prior Piezography workshop. Piezography is all new again for 2018. There are new drivers and new workflow that no longer require the use of QuadTone RIP. This would be a perfect workshop for those with experience in our previous workflows seeking to get up to speed with the new. It is also perfect for those who consider themselves knowledgable enough about workflows and systems and feel that they can easily adapt to an advanced workshop. We’ll explore the Piezography Professional Edition software in much more depth than during the Beginners workshop. If there is interest, we can demonstrate the PiezoDN digital negative system using platinum/palladium process.

Click here for Advanced Piezography Printmaking workshops.


DIGITAL NEGATIVES THAT WORK: DISPLAY TO PRINT MATCHING WITH PIEZODN.

We mean it! We teach matching alternative process to your display screen! Digital Negatives that Work is the name of this workshop because the method that we teach using the new PiezoDN software and inks system produces a negative for any darkroom or alternative process automatically rather than by the tedious process required by other systems. It’s self-adjusting to variables by simply remeasuring a target. It is the easiest to use system. And its simplicity matches its best in industry performance. These negatives produce higher acuity, smoother tonal response, and better linearization than other digital negative systems. What’s truly remarkable is that you can with the same measurements, produce a media profile that is linear to historical adaptations of the alternative process method, or bend it to your will to match the contrast of your screen display. This unique software feature of PiezoDN allows you to choose between the natural contrast of the medium or to make a print that is true to your computer’s display screen.

Part of me wants to stay true to that which photographers expect from a historical process print, so I make linear film. But, there is another part of me that chooses to stretch the medium to a point where it exceeds what someone expects from it, so I select the option to match to screen. I get the same smooth linearity that PiezoDN is known for – but with a contrast boost. Either way, PiezoDN turns you into an “expert” in the eyes of your peers. We make it so incredibly easy to look your best.

Our method works so that you can produce more and better work. We like to say that our software and inks system does the work so that you do not have to.

When this course is taught in Vermont we use the Platinum / Palladium process because it is the least toxic of any darkroom or alternative process. We are on country plumbing here at Cone Editions Press and we are mindful of what we put in our land and in our bodies. But, the process that you will learn for making digital negatives is directly applicable to any other darkroom or alt process.

Everyone gets a chance to go through the process one-on-one. The whole concept behind PiezoDN is that you use our Master Curve to make a film that is used to produce a contact print. After processing the contact print, you use a spectro to measure the contact print – enter the data into PiezoDN software – and it produces a perfect curve for QTR to make a film perfectly suited to that process. PiezoDN uses Piezography inks to produce tens of thousands of more gray levels than negatives printed with color inks. The PiezoDN linearization breathes all kinds of life into negatives and positives used for Carbon Print, Cyanotype, Gravure, Silver Print, Pt/Pd…

…and you get to make lots of Pt/Pd prints at the same time. All in all this is an incredible 4-day workshop and value if even for the amount of prints that are made. We offer workshop discounts that make acquiring your own PiezoDN and Piezography system very attractive!

If your ultimate goal is to make silver prints, or salt prints, or cyanotypes or any process that requires a digital negative – this workshop is for you. If you have always wanted to learn platinum / palladium printing, this workshop is also perfect for you!
Click here for Digital Negatives that Work PiezoDN workshops.


PRINT-OUT PLATINUM-PALLADIUM AND PIEZODN WITH PRADIP MALDE.

Our first guest teacher of 2018. What an inspirational teacher, guide, friend, artist, lecturer, collaborator. Truly this is a treat for us as much as it will be for those who attend.  Pradip Malde is a photographer and educator who has lived and worked in Tanzania, India, Spain, and Scotland, and currently resides in the United States. His work has been widely published and exhibited across the USA and Europe and is included in various public and private collections, notably the Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago; Houston Museum of Fine Art, Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Princeton University Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, London; the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh; and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago.

Malde’s work sits between fine art, documentary, and collaborative modes of photography practice, but throughout has worked extensively with large format and platinum-palladium printing. His long-term professional collaboration with chemist and photographer Mike Ware, which began in 1981, led to the successful re-formulation of an ammonium-based platinum/palladium printing-out process, derivative of the 19th century process published by Austrian photographers Joseph (Giuseppe) Pizzighelli (1849-1912) and Arthur von Hübl (1853-1932)  in 1883 titled “La platinotypie.”

Most of us refer to Pradip’s process as the Malde-Ware process, but that makes Pradip a bit uncomfortable to have such an amazing form of the Pt-Pd print to be named after him. So we will call it by its long name instead. The process is exciting because it is more controllable than standard Pt-Pd printing, probably more expressive in tone, and certainly even less non-toxic. It is less grainy and probably nearly impossible to have the dreaded spots associated with Pt-Pd. You’ll also be learning PiezoDN in the same one-on-one process as our Digital Negatives that Work workshops. Certainly I believe that if you are a seasoned Pt-Pd printer and you take this printing out process workshop, there is a good chance you will change your own darkroom practices. And if you are just coming into Pt-Pd – wow – what an intro you’ll have!

Click here for Pradip Malde’s printing out process workshop.


CONTEMPLATIVE PRINTMAKING WITH JON CONE.

Your work is at the forefront of this workshop. The idea is to slow it down and to concentrate and contemplate the making of a print. We’ll work in monotone.

When you hear a printmaker say that they worked on a print for several weeks, have you ever considered what they possibly did in all that time? What would you do in that time? What if you had an opportunity to work on a single image for four days with the idea of learning the processes that go into making a Master Print.

This would be a perfect workshop for those who consider themselves knowledgable enough about workflows and systems and feel that they can easily adapt to an advanced workshop. You should have a basic working knowledge of Piezography and either Photoshop or and Lightroom. However, it is more important to be comfortable in Photoshop and Lightroom than having experience in Piezography (we can do the technical part of printing – it doesn’t change your experience in terms of reflecting on the prints and responding to them.)

And that is what this workshop is about…looking at prints and responding to them. What might make it a little better? And what did that just do to it that makes it need something else.  Jon refers to this as listening to prints – tuning them visually until they sound right. Nothing too loud here or there to get in the way of the photographer’s intentions. And with a small group of no more than 6, this should be awesome group experience. And because we’re tuning images – we’ll be maximizing our time visually rather than with demos.

Click here for Jon Cone’s Contemplative Printmaking workshop.


EXPERIMENTAL INKJET PRINTING FOR ARTISTS.

Alternative inks, uncoated papers, vellum, inkjet fabric.

This workshop is a creative exploration and experimentation designed to expand the participant’s vocabulary. The purpose is to explore new methodologies and perspectives. We’ll utilize a large variety of substrates and techniques in a digital lab of studio collaborators. If you’re looking for a digital upgrade to your toolbox, this visual smorgasbord is an exciting new workshop offering! If you like hanging out on the cutting edge then this is the workshop for you!!

This would be a perfect workshop for those who consider themselves knowledgable enough about workflows and systems and feel that they can easily adapt to a creative workshop. You should have a basic working knowledge of either Photoshop or and Lightroom. However, it is more important to be comfortable in a creative environment than being digitally competent! (We can do the technical part of printing for you  – it doesn’t change your experience in terms of reflecting on the prints and responding to them.)

Click here for Experimental Inkjet Printing for Artists workshop.


OLD SCHOOL PRINTMAKING FOR NEW SCHOOL TEACHERS.

What is “old school printmaking”? It’s a way to describe a process which did not find its way into new school printmaking. And this workshop is designed to show you how to bring it in and to inspire others. Old school printmakers used drawing tusche, cut woodblocks, made screenprint stencils, thought in color printings with an idea of how one color printing layerwould affect a subsequent color printing layer. As such, old school printmaking involved experimentation and contemplation. That which went into the printing took much longer than the printing itself.

Not all new school printing is push button. But in comparison to old school printing which used etching and litho presses and silkscreen tables, new school printing is rather push button.

This workshop is designed to find new school ways of working with old school techniques. Literally, we will do separations and plate making and contemplating how to do effect something manually. It is designed to show teachers how to get their students to break out of the push button mold – with the hopes that the students will create new ways of making prints with inkjet printers.

Each day will be involve a different technique. It will be jam packed and hopefully bring back memmories of how one used to work, and the realization that what was lost has really only been waiting for the opportunity to be brought back forward again. For example, we will explore working with hand drawn and painted film separations. On another day we’ll use an inkjet printer to print the positive directly on to a photopolymer plate to make a digital etching (no film!).

It’s not actually necessary that you have experience with etching, woodcut, monoprint, silkscreen or lithography. hose are the conceptual processes that we will be synthesizing both in process and in inkjet. We will not actually be using these analogue methods – with the exception of a direct to plate digital etching demonstration. And if you don’t like drawing and painting on film, we’ll use computers.

Click here for Old School Printmaking for New School Teachers workshop.


THE PAINTED PHOTOGRAPH WITH CATHY CONE.

Cathy Cone is a photographer and painter. Cathy with her husband, master printer Jon Cone, founded Cone Editions Press as a collaborative printmaking workshop.Cathy is director of the Workshops and Studio. Cathy received her MFA at the Maine Media College. She was awarded the Vermont Art Fellowship. Some of her exhibitions include Weisman Art Museum, University of Alabama, DeCordova Museum, and the The Vermont Center for Photography. Her works are in the collection of IBM, MCI, Hallmark Fine Art Collections, American Express and the Beekman, A Thompson Hotel, New York.


Temple Courters installation Beekman in NYC, 2017

This hands on workshop combines digital printing and water based painting. This is a multi media approach to image making for a small group limited to 5. Experimentation is encouraged with goal of expanding one’s visual vocabulary and tool box. Participants will use gouache, watercolor and drawing materials for layering printed images. The goal is to infuse and inspire your personal practice through the infinite combination of these mediums. The week includes group critiques, discussions and demonstrations.

You’ll mostly be working in a painter’s studio – but with access to the printers at Cone Editions Press. Don’t worry about the technical aspects of printing, photoshop or other software….this is an opportunity for creativity. You won’t need prior experience with digital imaging. You can bring photos with you that will be scanned for you. At the same time, if you know your way around a computer then that’s great too!

Click here for The Painted Photograph with Cathy Cone workshop.


PIEZOGRAPHY REIMAGINED IN SANTA FE, NM.

This is the only workshop that Jon is offering outside of Cone Editions Press in Vermont. This workshop takes place at Don Messec’s Making Art Safely workshops in Santa Fe, NM.  Jon Cone will lead you on an all things Piezography workshop – but the place to sign up is at Don’s website rather than at InkjetMall website.

The Santa Fe workshop differs from the ones we have in Vermont in terms of having more relaxed demonstrations and tutorials. One on one guidance is available for those who request.  But, the studio is not designed for projection on closed screen – still we try to do that for those who are willing to give up printing to watch and follow along with Jon’s tutorials.

The Santa Fe workshop is a no-holds-barred Piezography print-fest! We line up all the printers adjacent to stacks of different grades of papers and after brief demos we set you loose! Expect a lot of Piezography printing beginning with the simple Piezography systems and progressing through to the more complex systems. The idea here is for you to get your feet wet, dive in to the bottom, and possibly never come up!  Until of course….DON in his mesmerizing and booming voice alerts you to the end of the week tidy up and our group critique.

The workshop is limited to 12. It takes place in a magnificent setting. Yes of course we have a fantastic paella party there, too! We just do it with a lot more green chile!  Totally fun and unique, it mixes the best of what Piezography is in a more open studio setting.

Click here to sign up for this workshop at Making Art Safely.


Coming to Vermont is a big deal! Here are a few statistics. We rank #1 in terms of per capita micro-breweries, and not far behind that in artisan cheese. Vermont is home to more than 45 cheesemakers using milk from sheep, goats and a wide range of cow breeds.

Here is the calendar of our upcoming Digital Print Workshops for 2018



Cone Digital Print Workshops Bring a Friend special offer!
Jon Cone
13 February, 2018
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